Concrete standing in for oak
Short concrete markers trace, hole by hole, the six rings of huge timbers that vanished four thousand years ago.
Adrian Farwell — CC BY 3.0 · Andy Li — CC0 · Andy Li — CC0 · Des Blenkinsopp — CC BY-SA 2.0
In 1925 a Royal Air Force officer flying over a wheat field north-east of Stonehenge spotted — and soon photographed — a pattern of dark rings that nobody had ever noticed from the ground. Ben and Maud Cunnington dug the site over the next two seasons and found the marks were postholes: six concentric oval rings of massive timbers raised around 2500 BC inside a bank and ditch, an oval roughly 40 by 36 metres, opening north-east towards the midsummer sunrise. The timber rotted away millennia ago, so the excavators set short concrete posts into the original holes to show where it stood. Be warned: nothing here is standing. What you get is a field of knee-high concrete markers, one information board, and a small flint cairn near the centre marking the grave of a child of two or three found during the dig — the bones were taken to London and destroyed there in the wartime bombing. A full circuit takes about ten minutes. The value is the location rather than the view. Seventy metres away runs the bank of Durrington Walls, one of the largest Neolithic henge enclosures in Britain, where archaeologists believe the builders of Stonehenge lived, feasted and celebrated; the famous stones themselves are three kilometres off. Stand here and Stonehenge stops being a lone monument in an empty plain and becomes the centrepiece of a whole complex of timber and stone. Entry is free and needs no ticket, and the small car park beside the road is free too — take care crossing to the gate. There are no facilities at all: no toilets, no café, no shade (the nearest are at the Stonehenge visitor centre or in Amesbury). The ground is grass and reasonably level, so a pushchair manages in dry weather and struggles after rain. The site is completely exposed to the wind, and in winter it is dark well before 16:30, so there is no point arriving late. A car is close to essential: about 20 minutes north from Salisbury on the A345, and only a few minutes from Stonehenge.
Short concrete markers trace, hole by hole, the six rings of huge timbers that vanished four thousand years ago.
The bank of Durrington Walls starts seventy metres away - one of Britain's largest Neolithic henges and most likely the village of the Stonehenge builders.
In July and August the Stonehenge car park fills up, yet here you will rarely find more than two cars and you walk the field alone.
Countess Road, Amesbury, Wiltshire SP4 7AR
No. There is nothing to see but concrete markers in a field, and it is a 20-minute drive each way. Add 20-30 minutes here on your way to or from Stonehenge if you have a car; without one, skip it entirely - the tour buses run to Stonehenge, not to Woodhenge.
As a short leg-stretch, yes: open grass, free, unfenced, and they can run between the markers. Do not expect it to hold their attention past ten minutes, and there are no toilets - sort that out at the Stonehenge visitor centre before you come.